Message From nicole

We made it back to a great welcome in Liverpool, and finished overall in 4th place - which is truely a great achievment considering that we were in 9th overall back in Santa Cruz. I'm not sure how I am going to re-adapt to the normal world. The leggers are your good friends, whilst the other round the worlders are more like your family, and it is tough to drag yourself away - to go from seeing someone all day everyday, to 'i'm not sure when, but hopefully soon', and especially when they are people that have looked after you in the tough times. I'll miss everyone on board the Lady Qing. And in fact i'll miss the boat herself, as she has definately looked after us in the tough times - climbing up and down those 6m waves! So the end of an adventure, but hopefully plenty of time for more adventures in the future. xx

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Nearly home

The race is nearly over now.... time to start crying...
We had a great race across the Atlantic (apart from the excessive amounts of drizzle). New York were chasing us hard for a number of days - and they just couldn't catch us. They'd catch up a little and then we'd pull away again, so kind of stressful but also quite cool. But in the end, they went off on a little jaunt to the south, which paid off and put them 10 nmiles ahead. So then we had Hull and Humber on our heels, and we had a little duel with them for a few days, before coming out on top(Ha ha). Its quite stressful when a boat is close, and you can see exactly how much you have gained or lost - and especially annoying when you come on deck after 4 hours off and see that the other watch have lost two miles (obviously it is always the other watches fault!). In the end we came into Cork second though, so a great result and a great performance by the whole team. We also moved up to 4th place overall, which is amazing considering that we were in 9th overall a couple of months back.
We have been hanging out in Cork for the past few days, before the final race into Liverpool. The yacht club has been great, and the town is very pretty, but I think that I am ready now to leave and make the final trip home. xx

Message From nicole

145 miles to go in our last ocean crossing, & then we round the Fastnet rock &head up the Irish sea to Cork. Sadly the North Atlantic doesn't seem to possess any sunshine, just lots of drizzle (that may explain the UK weather) but the wind has come nicely behind us now & e are roaring along -hitting the heady hights of 18 knots now & again as we surf down the waves. Hull and Humber are close behind, & it looks like it will be very close all the way in....

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Message From nicole

Over halfway across the Atlantic. After the becalming, we had some gnarly weather for a while- lots of wind on the nose, &some crazy waves that made steering interesting -with the cold, it made life on board quite tough. Things have improved now. The wind has come around &the kite is up; the warmth of the Gulf stream has kicked in. We have been dueling hard with New York who are only a few miles back. Lots of wildlife around, & I nearly ran over a whale...<

Message From nicole

The last big race has begun...It was all a bit odd before we started. Everyone was a little apprehensive; the leggers because it was their first ocean crossing, & us, I think, because it was the last. We got off to a cracking start - tacking up the estuary, with the Lady Qing out in front, avoiding all of the chaos behind. But once out at sea the wind dropped, &as we hit the Grand Banks the fog rolled in; & here we are again flopping around in the fog...

TV show

If you fancy watching a bit of yachting, they have made a tv series about our race, which should be coming to sky sports soon. xx

In the middle of nowhere

An interesting trip up to Sydney... It was a non-race, to the middle of nowhere, 40 knots on the nose.... what was that all about? We just wanted a nice little trip, but no; a shit load of wind, freezing cold and icy water. Then we had to sail slalom style to get into Sydney harbour, so that we could avoid all the lobster pots. Luckily Marcus took over the helm at that point, as my skills aren't really up to that.... So I am not overly excited about the trip across the Atlantic. Am feeling that it may be a bit of a grind - cold and wet, and apparently there are 17 icebergs near where we are going??? It is also the last ocean, so a little sad too. But I have now bought a key piece of kit - some marigolds .... (dry hands, and hopefully warm ones!).
Canada has been nice though. V friendly people, though nasty old weather.

Canada...

So here we are in Canada - it is a little cold, but nice. Just watched a truely shocking movie.... The end of the race was quite exciting. Hull and Humber overtook us, and then we took them, and finished 0.2 miles ahead, or something very small like that. (Or so i was told, as I was actually sleeping at the time....) So that was cool, we got a blue flag (third place), but everyone is very keen to get a yellow flag (1st) - they can be quite elusive...

Message From nicole

We were supposed to do a photo shoot as we left New York in front of the Statue of Liberty; But sadly it was so foggy that we couldn't actually see the Statue, & that has been the story pretty much since. The start was farsical as 10 boats tried to race in little wind. Spinnakers went up & straight back down again. Boats pointed all over the place, to try & get some wind and clean air, & I had no idea whether we were one of the ones pointing in the right direction or not!The fog has rolled in & out constantly since - sometimes you could only see a few hundred yards ahead & we crossed our fingers & hoped that the radar was working! At one point an orange blob loomed towards us - a large tanker? in the end just Hull and Humber, but perhaps a lucky escape. & the fog makes it cold - really cold. We got pretty excited this morning as the sun appeared, but it was a brief appearance until the fog came back.

Message From nicole

The race was stopped early again due to lack of wind, and we were not overly impressed. After leading most of the race we had slipped back during the flopping around stage & wanted to race to the end. It wasn't to be though, so we fought hard for the last 12 hours to get the best place that we could (4th in the end - respectable, but not that yellow flag that we so wanted). Sadly there has been a tonne of wind since... & a crazy lightening storm as well.

Message From nicole

Stuck in a windhole again, it is all depressingly familiar.... After a few days of hard sailing, where we managed to fight off the opposition, the wind has gone AWOL & the whole fleet is bunched up into a few miles. We have sadly dropped back & it looks like race could go to whoever gets the wind first. There is something that is eerily beautiful about a flat calm ocean, so calm that it reflects the stars; but I would quite like to get to New York!

Message From nicole

We are now more than a third of the way to New York, the weather is cooling off,& as ever, a downwind race is upwind! We are currently leading the pack &it is all incredibly stressfull. We can see 5 boats, ranging from 1-5 miles behind us, so every sail change has to be the best one ever, &you can sit for hours seeing them slowly creep up on you, constantly thinking, what are they doing that we're not! We cross our fingers, but there's a long way to go yet

Message From nicole

It's a bit wet & windy! After a few legs where I managed not to bruise myself too much, I am now maxing them out. Some nice rings around my legs from hanging around at the top of the mast. Then today, we had another nightmare. Trying to hank on the no3, & feeling very unstable, I suddenly see the head of the sail launch itself over the side. I lept after it but it was too late & the whole sail unfurled itself into the sea. So we dragged it back in, as the waves threw me around (& kept throwing me down onto a very large cleat, that I was slightly scared would end up somewhere very unconfortable). Then after untangling myself from a pile of sail, we managed to get it on & head back to the relative safety of aft of the boat. But as I headed back a huge wave picked me up, but instead of washing me down the deck, it slammed me straight into the shrouds. Now that hurt & a very large bruise is developing nicely!<

Message From nicole

Yesterday we went through the Panama Canal & crossed from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. It really feels like we are on the way home now.... The Canal was cool. Some very large locks, connected by a river & lakes, & all just powered by gravity. I filmed the first lock transit from the top of the mast, which gave me a great view, though a number of bruises! Sadly it also rained all day, though we managed to take advantage of Liverpools rain shelter, cunningly made out of their storm jib, whilst waiting for the next lock! We started the race to Jamaica a couple of hours ago, but got off to a shocking start, which was followed up by a fairly shocking sail change- so I think that we are now in last place (again). The weather is also shocking. Huge squalls carrying lots of rain -& I mean lots of rain- & wind that can't quite decide what it is doing. But it is just a short hop, with less than 450 miles to go.<

Message From nicole

We motor on to Panama, which is a little dull, though gives you a bit of time to catch up on some sunbathing & reading, as well as getting most of the boat jobs out of the way. We have just made a short re-fuelling pit stop in Costa Rica. The coastline was covered in beautiful rain forest, though sadly it was dark when we arrived, so we couldn't really see the bay area, though, the fresh fruit, ice cream & beer we were given, more than made up for it!

Message From nicole

An exciting end to the race. Nova Scotia had just pipped us to the first gate, and we spent the next day edging past them again. Some great helming, &a good sail change meant that we were ahead& gaining slowly. Then with around 40 miles to go to the race finish, 4 boats were within a few miles of each other battling for 2nd 7 3rd place; the wierdest thing being that 2 of them were a hundred miles away, so we had no idea whether they were in better or worse winds than us, &therefore how well we were doing. So we put everthing into it- helming & triming as hard as we could. The miles ticked away slowly, but eventually it was all over & we just had to wait for the results to come though. First it looked as though we had made third, but then after some minor controversy, it became clear that New York had made a mistake in reporting their position &we had beaten them to 2nd by a mere 9 mins after 2000 nmiles!<

Message From nicole

The boys are taking part in a central american style moustache growing competition with Liverpool, & they are coming along nicely -though when you catch them on a dark night it is a little scary! Last night was pretty cool. The galaxies were the brightest I have ever seen, & the phosphoresence was out in force, with little lights flashing all over the sea, & lit up dolphins swooshing around. I even think there were a few neon coloured aliens out there!<

Message From nicole

Not too much to write about at the moment. We are doing some beautiful downwind sailing down the coast of mexico. Lovely sunny days, and clear starry nights - a bit like crusing rather than racing. Orion is still out looking after us every night, which is nice. The boat routine goes on as ever -4 hours on, 4 off, sleeping,eating, and sailing; but life on board is significantly nicer when the boat is flat, and you are not being thrown around.

Message From nicole

Santa cruz was another great stop, with a lovely yacht club looking after us. Also spent a few days in San Francisco, which was cool. Went to Alcatraz and the museum of modern art. Was great to be in a big city again, and i even managed to fit some karaoke in! We left Santa cruz a couple of days ago,and got off to a great start- first over the line and first to the first mark. We were then accompanied by a large pod of dolphins and seals as we set of down the coast (although for a while i thought the seals were some wierd deformed dolphins with no dorsal fins!). Nice to see some wildlife again. We have great weather at the moment - beautiful clear nights - though a bit cold considering we are off the coast of Mexico - nice sunny days, and some great kite action. Apparently our boat was also in the FT and is on posters in the tube - so look out for us!

Message From nicole

This last leg has been hard as our race was pretty much over halfway through when we got becalmed. & when it is cold and wet it is a little gutting knowing that the others have all arrived. we are also rapidly becoming the worst boat in the fleet with 3 last places out of the last 4, & it is hard not to become a little down. The cold weather & constant beating hasn't helped, but we should be in Santa Cruz tomorrow, & things always seem better in the bar!

Message From nicole

An odd few days. First we had no wind and flopped around for two days. Then when the wind came, it came in large amounts. so we went through all of the sails one by one as it got windier and windier; all in around 3 hours. we hanked on one sail and put it up. then it got a bit windier so we dropped that one & put up the next. then it got a little more windy so we dropped that one & put up an even smaller one. craziness!

Message From nicole

So my last upbeat blog about how we were about to take the rest of the fleet was a little off target. Since then we slipped to the back of the fleet & then got stuck in a windhole for the last day or so, & have been bobbing around whilst the others kept going. So things have kind of gone from bad to worse. The ocean is strangely beautiful though when it is all glassy instead of full of ripples & waves. The wind is picking up again now, so fingers crossed!

Message From nicole

Life on board is pretty quiet at the moment. Not too much is happening such that last nights curry night accompanied by Ravi Shanklar was some kind of highlight, & this morning i spent an hour on the bow trying to spot some crazy sea creatures! The race is going well. After a bad 12 hour period where we dropped back in the fleet, we've slowly started to move up the ranks & have 3rd placed Hull in our sights. The sun is out and its a great day for a sail.

Message From nicole

Fnally on the way to Santa Cruz (though the delay in Hawaii was great). We got off to a good start, after pulling a 360 just before the start line so that we didn't cross too early. It was then a beautiful sail for the first 10 mins, til we passed Diamond Head on the corner of Oahu and it got a little choppy. The new bucket then got well used as seasickness began to hit! But after 24 hrs of beating into strong winds, it has eased off & we are sailing along nicely in the sunshine. As the wind swung around for a while we tried to launch one of our repaired kites. It flew beautifully for about 10 secs, until in true Qingdao style the strop at the head of the sail (which the halyard holding up the sail was attached to) broke, & suddenly the sail was in the sea. So we dragged it back on board, & packed it back in the bag to rehoist, by which time the wind had moved back round on the nose.... c'est la vie<

Off to Santa Cruz

The holiday in Hawaii is sadly almost over. The rigging has been mended and is currently being checked and it looks like we will be off to California tomorrow. Its a shame as I have been enjoying myself, hanging out on the beach, practising my surfing technique and sampling a few more of the local cocktails....

Hawaii

vodka luge
my fish
the volcano eruption
surfing

Crossing the pacific

the snow
sewing the sails
crossing the international dateline
helming
arriving in Hawaii

legs 3 and 4

getting our third place flag in Fremantle
leaving Fremantle

crossing the equator for the second time
"the watch"

some piccies from the first legs

bringing the spinnaker down
crossing the equator
helming
winching
gnarly weather in the Southern Ocean

Trapped in Hawaii...

So it's tough being stuck in Hawaii.... Have done lots of cool stuff. I caught a big fish, went surfing a few times (and got up on the board), drank cocktails, toured the island. Also went on a trip to the Big Island, where the volcano is errupting. The trip was a bit "blonds on tour" as I went with another girl from the boat and we were both as dappy as each other! But it was cool, we made it there and back, and we saw the volcano errupting and the lava flowing into the sea. Emma drove the car and i did the tour guiding, which was mostly fine until I sent us down the 4WD only route by misake.... Now its back to the boat to prepare to leave, though no one yet knows when that will be! x

Message From nicole

A slightly random race this time. We went from snow and anchoring, to surfing down the waves at 25 knots, to beating into the wind for the last few days. We've had a long list of breakages & repairs, from the generator, watermaker & instruments down below, to sails, poles, & lines up on deck. We even had two small fires- it was a bit of shock when the cable for the sewing machine burst into flames as I was using it! We are quite disappointed that the race was ended when we were in our worst position in days & in a great position for when the wind changed direction. But I guess that is the way yacht racing goes -some bad luck can make a big difference. Now we are crusing gently towards Hawaii, ensuring that there is no undue stress on the mast. We are not yet sure when the race will restart as they have to build a second new mast. But getting stuck in Hawaii for a few extra days can hardly be a bad thing! xx

Message From nicole

Another boat has just lost its mast & the race has been ended to prevent any further incidents. all are well on the boat concerned. We are all quite gutted that the race has been ended early. We had just slipped to 5th but were in a good position, & had our sights set on a podium position. Now all of our efforts have come to nothing. & after a tough day pumping out the bilges, as when we woke this morning the sleeping area was practically underwater!

Message From nicole

Today is Monday 10th March (I think). And yesterday was Monday 10th March. It is all a little confusing. Last night at 2am, we crossed the international dateline and crossed from Eastings to Westings ie we are now West of the Greenwich Meridian rather than East and 12 hours behind UK time instead of 12 hours ahead. Sods law would have it that last night was my only full nights sleep in the last 11 days, but I was dragged from my bed to celebate with champagne, crisps, sour mix and silly hats. We are now more than halfway around the world in terms of longtitude (as well as mileage and days which we passed a while back), which is a good feeling. and tomorrow we should break the 1000nm to go to Hawaii. Its is an odd race, as the fleet is still close together and 3000nm in, it is strange to see another clipper cross behind you only a few hundred meters away.Usually we don't see another after the first 12 hours!

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Message From nicole

i've been learning some new skills recently, as we had a trashed kite (spinnaker) to fix and our usual sewer has left the boat. So as well as learning how to patch up and sew the kite back together, I am now highly skilled at fixing sewing machines made circa 1910! And so many different ways in which they can stop working, for no apparent reason. I'll be crossing my fingers the first time it goes up. Other than that, we continue across a very large ocean

Message From nicole

Sorry for the lack of blogs recently but things have been a little crazy recently. After a few days of surfing down the waves at 20 knots (my own top speed is 21.4 which is actually a bit scary) things have gone a bit mad with things breaking all over the place. Our spinnaker pole has 3 lines on it to hold it in place. Yesterday one line came off which we managed to fix by someone shimmying up another line to reattach it. Then about 20 mins later one of the other lines snapped, which sent the spinnaker flying all over the place and it wrapped around the inner forestay so badly that it took more than an hour to untwist. It also lost us two places in the race, which is pretty soul destroying as we have been all working really hard and are all suffering from sleep deprivation. Anyway, still 2500 miles to go, so plenty of time to catch those boats that snuck past.... xx

Message From nicole

Things are looking a bit better now. The wind has picked up and we are back to some nice downwind sailing. We rounded the bottom of Japan last night, and now have begun our Pacific crossing. It is also warming up slowly and I have been able to shed a layer or two in the daytime (though there are still a fair few left to go before we get to the nice t-shirt and shorts sailing). I am definitely more into warm weather sailing. It is such a pfaff putting on 3 base layers, a mid layer, oilies, gloves, hat, balaclava etc, and even wearing all of that I felt like my hands were going to fall off early yesterday morning when we were doing a few manouvers. We are quite short handed this leg, so I have been doing jobs all over the boat - helming, snake pit and even on the bow.... I had my first experience as the no. 1 when hanking on the sail - though perhaps it is pretty sad to admit to that having sailed so far! xx

Message From nicole

The story of the race start across the Pacific...
We set off to fireworks, cheering crowds and a media scrum surrounding us. There were 10 boats out there, but 9 were ignored as the media boats all jostled to get shots of QIngdao, the home boat. The race start was in light winds. I was a little worried at one point that we would hit the line to soon, but we depowered to slow ourselves, and got a great start as first over the line (lets hope that we didn't offend the locals by being last in and first out!). So we raced hard in the light winds, until it dropped so much that our progress was entirely due to the tide. This wasn't so bad until 6 hours later when the tide turned and we started to drift back towards Qingdao. Depressingly the anchor had to come out. You may think that things couldn't get much worse than sitting out in the cold, anchored with the lights of the city still clearly in sight. But it could and it did. It rarely snows in Qingdao and it rarely snows at sea, but down the snow came. We made a little snowman and threw a few snowballs, but it wasn't the most pleasant 4 hours of my life! Things are looking up a bit now; we are moving, which is good and even in the right direction. We've scraped the two inches of snow off the deck, and in a minute I am going to get into my sleeping bag, with my hot water bottle and blanket, and try and warm up!

China

So we arrived in China to a massive welcome. Big event, camera's everywhere. Posters of all the skippers all over town... As the Chinese boat we are currently minor celebs. Banquets every night. Lots of work to do on the boat and lots of corporate days - not sure when I am supposed to sleep.... There was a massive prive giving event, with lots of acts from Qingdao and from Beijing - we then made the front page of the paper the next day! All a little surreal.

We have now pretty much made it half way around the world, which is really cool. The next race will be tough though - a long way (maybe 5000 nm), and really cold at the beginning - though I have just bought a hot water bottle to help! Apparently though the Pacific is an amazing ocean. We shall see... We have a little self respect to make up after our last few performances!

Message From nicole

The race ended this morning as we have run out of time to sail all of the way to Qingdao, and we are now motoring the final 500 miles. I think that this has been the toughest race so far, and everyone was pretty excited when the engine came on! The conditions have been tough, with strong winds, big waves and very hot, very cold and very wet weather. This made life above decks even harder work, and the heeling of the boat from beating into the wind makes life below decks a constant series of press ups (and in my case constant stumbling around)! Beating (sailing upwind) continuously is also pretty demoralising. As although you may be working hard and sailing fast, because you can't sail in a straight line, you may only end up wih a 12 hour run of 50 miles towards the target (compared to maybe 130 miles on a good day). We've also had some other challenges to deal with, with illness tha made us divert towards the Philippines in case we needed to drop the casualty off, and a semi man over board - where somone went over the side, but remained clipped on with his strop. In that situation though, it was quite comforting to see how quickly we got him back on board, and how well everyone worked together. So a tough leg, but with some good times - which I will remember better when firmly on land..... We are now awaiting a warm welcome, and some nice cold beers! xx

Message From nicole

Things are pretty hairy at the moment.Big waves and wind have meant that we have had to get the storm sails out. Helming at night is pretty scary, as it is pitch black- no moon or stars at all, - and all of those big waves that are lurking out there in the dark! The weather has also make a huge u turn, and moved from the tropics to winter over night. The thermals are out and we are all counting down the number of cold night shifts that we have to endure!

Message From nicole

If you thought that the yachty life was glamourous then think again.... The true glamour of ocean racing hit me yesterday as i had my head down a bilge trying to empty it of diesel, & then got down on my hands & knees to scrub diesel off the floorboards (it is v slippy). The weather has got gnarly again now. Last night we had 35 knots of wind & 4m swell- it was pretty crazy helming down those waves, especially in the pitch dark when you can't see them!

Message From nicole

We battle on upwind towards our first waypoint of Taiwan. Progress in the right direction is slow and although we are sailin well we still lie in 10th position. Life is fairly tough on board, with the boat heeling over, the waves crashing over the bow, and the sauna-like conditions below making sleep very difficult. The bouncing boat has also left me with a very large bruise following an incident in the head (toilet)! But there is entertainment on board. Yesterday the boys decided that they had had enough of wet clothes from the waves coming over the bow, and did a sail change in their pants. It was pretty hard to concentrate on helming as they stripped off beside me and went off to unhank the sail! We have also been entertained by birds sweeping through the sky to feast on the flying fish, whilst the stargazing at night has become more familiar again as the northern hemisphere stars come back into view.xx

Message From nicole

So we continue to track our way slowly towardsTaiwan.The wind is a good strength but it is coming from where we want to go, meaning that we have to tack (zig zag) our way there. Progress towards the target is therefore slow. For this race we also have two locals from Qingdao joining our crew - one of whom luckily owns one of the best bars in Qingdao! It makes an interesting change, and they speak good English, so no need for me to use my shoddy chinese!

Message From nicole

Had a great time in Singpore, which was v nice place. Had a champagne lunch with my crew -where i imagine that we got through more champagne than most. Then Sarah came out to visit,so I got to be a girl for a while again. We went to a very nice spa, though sadly my manicure hasn't lasted long now I am back on the boat! Had a good start to this race, but sadly hit a wind hole early on, and ended up at the back of the pack - but still a long way to go! xx

Message From nicole

The race for 9th place goes on... Although as the crow flies we do not have too far to go, but as the wind is coming from the direction that we want to go in, we are having to tack (zig zag) our way there - which is taking some time! The last days are always the hardest as however long the race is, everyone is desperate to get there once you are a few days from the end. Today we wil recross the equator, and the Pollywogs (those who have not crossed the equator before) will be initiated. As a Shellback, I am going to be Queen Aphro-something-or-other, which means that i get to chuck the slops over people this time! I am currently rooting around the boat to put some kind of costume together, though unfortunately most of our costume material seems to be halloween based! This time i think that i am most looking forward to some air conditioning, as the boat is beyond hot, and a v cold beer! xx

Message From nicole

Generally when you are sailing across oceans the landscape is fairly similar. You see amazing sunrises and sunsets, millions of stars, and changing sea state and colours; but overall it is mainly sea and sky. Other days though you see really cool stuff. At the moment we have Java on one side of us and Sumatra on the other. We are sailing past Krakatoa, which is just a few miles away, whilst son of Krakatoa is sending up puffs of smoke from its huge crater.

Message From nicole

An exceptional performance from our boat on this leg... sadly we made the choice to go west and the expected wind never arrived. We are now in 10th place..but its a great watch that im on..we chat and laugh all the time [insert by gary]. Actually they can be quite entertaining - we saw a shark the other day, an soon enough we had jaws music on the stereo! so it's not so bad mosying along at a few knots. 9th place is getting closer and closer and I am perfecting my light winds helming! The weather is v hot, so am having deck showers every day - a bucket of water over your head. The boys seem to like the naked showers, though personally I am sticking to bikini ones. Will be entering the pirate area soon, so we will be on the look out for pirates, which is kind of cool, but also bit scary! Luckily yachts are not usually their main target, as i think that they may carry more than parrots! xx

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Message From nicole

I thought that it was about time that I explained properly a little about life on the boat. Sorry if this is all obvious or repeated, but i thought perhaps that I may have just presumed that you all know what it is like on board. The crew is split into two watches of 5-7 people (depending on the overall crew numbers- as on different legs of the race then we have more or less leggers). We then do 4 hours on, 4 hours off 24 hours a day - so yes it is a bit of a nightmare getting up in the middle of the night (the 4am watch is a shocker) and never getting more than 3 hours sleep at a time - though daytime napping is in no way frowned upon in this world! When we are on watch then we steer/helm the boat, trim the sails, and then do any sail changes ie change to a bigger sail when there is less wind, and a smaller one when the wind picks up. We also tend to talk a lot of shit during this time (the qingdao chat...) especially when there is not that much to do. When off watch then we eat, sleep (and read, email etc if you have any spare time). Every day, one person on each watch then drops out of the watch system to do the mother watch - where you do all of the cooking and cleaning for a day- which is a bit rubbish but can be a nice change +the bonus side is that you get to sleep all night for once! And thats pretty much it- in practice its a pretty simple life. x

Message From nicole

The sun was shining, and the crowds were out waving us off, as we left Fremantle for the race to Singapore. We rounded a few buoys in the harbour, sailed up the coast for a few hours, before heading out to the open sea. We were well lined up for a great start, until a boat that we had right of way over pushed us out of the way, and we pretty much stalled on the line, as everyone sailed past us. We were all pretty gutted, but in ocean races the starts are more for the spectators, as with a few thousand miles to race pretty much anything can happen! 6 crew left us in Oz and another 6 joined. The new watches have settled in to sailing life again, +as I have changed watches I've also been getting used to the new regime. We have been sailing downwind since Fremantle, which has been a pleasant change from the last race. The spinnaker is flying and the boat is much more pleasant to live on when it is flatter. xx